Contagious laughter: distinctive acoustic parameters and appreciation of contagiousness

Abstract

Background: Except for the research on contagious laughter by Provine (1992), there are few studies on this type of laughter. Objective: To describe and relate the acoustic parameters of 66 contagious laughter audios and the appreciation of contagiousness of these audios by 132 university students. Methodology: The acoustic analysis was based on Praat software, and the contagiousness assessment was established using a graphical rating scale. Three hypotheses on the relationship between acoustic attributes, sex differences, and duration of laughter stimuli and their contagiousness appreciation were proposed and tested. Results: (a) no acoustic attribute taken individually allowed discrimination between the most and least contagious female and male stimuli; (b) acoustic predictors of contagiousness appreciation included the duration of laughter periods and the F1 and F2 formants; (c) no main or interaction effects were observed between the sex of the contagious laughter sender and the sex of the contagious laughter receiver, and (d) laughter stimuli with a duration between eight and eleven seconds generated the highest contagiousness appreciations. The results were discussed based on theories and empirical results on the subject. Conclusions: It is concluded that this laughter has distinctive acoustic and appreciative characteristics, some of which are related, although it shares some attributes with spontaneous laughter.